I’ve never wanted to use my age as a gimmick, as something that would get me ahead of other people. I’ve wanted the music to do that.

We moved into the back, made it into a little 50s sitting room and started to sell the records. We had an immediate success. For one thing, these Teddy Boys were thrilled to buy the records.

It isn’t sufficient just to want – you’ve got to ask yourself what you are going to do to get the things you want.

Music is well said to be the speech of angels.

I’ve never written a political song. Songs can’t save the world. I’ve gone through all that.

Kings are not born: they are made by artificial hallucination.

The most pitiful among men is he who turns his dreams into silver and gold.

Imagine your family finally making it from nothing to something, and finally getting things going, and finally buying a beautiful house and taking care of your children – and the next day, it’s completely all gone. Zero. Boom. Flat broke. So that’s when I had to man up.

Punk was defined by an attitude rather than a musical style.

Enthusiasm is the mother of effort, and without it nothing great was ever achieved.

All the good music has already been written by people with wigs and stuff.

I’m not a god – I do bad things.

Years ago, when I first started being a big star, I had fans that were fanatical. It was when ‚Jolene‘ was a big hit.

The secret of your success is determined by your daily agenda.

My drive is other people’s success.

I always say this about my music, and music in general: Music is like a time capsule. Each album reflects what I’m going through or what’s going on in my life at that moment.

Anything that encourages people to pick up an instrument and play, I’m fully behind.

Whatever talents I possess may suddenly diminish or suddenly increase. I can with ease become an ordinary fool. I may be one now. But it doesn’t do to upset one’s own vanity.

Fame itself… doesn’t really afford you anything more than a good seat in a restaurant.

The life which men praise and regard as successful is but one kind. Why should we exaggerate any one kind at the expense of the others?

If you want to shine like a sun, first burn like a sun.

I never listen to ‚Nevermind.‘ I haven’t listened to it since we put it out. That says something.

Whether you come from a council estate or a country estate, your success will be determined by your own confidence and fortitude.

In an individual sport, yes, you have to win titles. Baseball’s different. But basketball, hockey? One person can control the tempo of a game, can completely alter the momentum of a series. There’s a lot of great individual talent.

I wanted to have the adoration of John Lennon but have the anonymity of Ringo Starr. I didn’t want to be a frontman. I just wanted to be back there and still be a rock and roll star at the same time.

At 13 years old, I realized I could start my own band. I could write my own song, I could record my own record. I could start my own label. I could release my own record. I could book my own shows. I could write and publish my own fanzine. I could silk-screen my own T-shirt. I could do this all myself.

Obedience brings success; exact obedience brings miracles.

I don’t even listen to rap. My apartment is too nice to listen to rap in.

Songs are my diaries; they always have been. You have to put your trust in everyone because putting down those real, personal details and thoughts that make a song authentic also opens you right up. I am constantly misunderstood; a lot of people just don’t get me.

After all those years in Asia, I don’t have to do promotion anymore. We just release a Jackie Chan movie and – Boom! – people go.

‚Kiss Land‘ wasn’t about what people wanted to hear on the radio. It was the state of mind I was in – introverted, like David Cronenberg’s ‚Naked Lunch.‘ You didn’t know if you were hearing a chorus or a verse. It was just my thoughts.

I sing and play the guitar, and I’m a walking, talking bacterial infection.

For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and everyone who humbles himself will be exalted.

From the time that ‚Nevermind‘ came out in September of 1991 to the time that Nirvana was over, it was really just a few years, and a lot happened in those few years.

You know, God gave me a gift to do other things besides play the game of basketball.

Music is a really great creative tool for me, for different roles.

I’ve made sure that in any situation and with any record label, I’m allowed to write my own music.

Zappa was very technical and impressed by things that were musically challenging – weird time signatures, strange keys, awkward chord sequences. Zappa was important to me as an example of everything I didn’t want to do. I’m very grateful to him, actually.

To all the musicians who are making reggaeton, let’s put some more effort into it and bring something new to the people!

And I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done, in showing that religion and Government will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together.

There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats.

By indignities men come to dignities.

I’ve dreamed about doing music since I was three or four years old.

Sincerity makes the very least person to be of more value than the most talented hypocrite.

Every man, every woman who has to take up the service of government, must ask themselves two questions: ‚Do I love my people in order to serve them better? Am I humble and do I listen to everybody, to diverse opinions in order to choose the best path?‘ If you don’t ask those questions, your governance will not be good.

I’m not interested in possible complexities. I regard song structure as a graph paper.

Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can’t lose.

If you cannot do great things, do small things in a great way.

As I approve of a youth that has something of the old man in him, so I am no less pleased with an old man that has something of the youth. He that follows this rule may be old in body, but can never be so in mind.

Songs for me are like a message in a bottle. You send them out to the world, and maybe the person who you feel that way about will hear about it someday.

In a lot of ways, success is much harder than I thought it would be. I figured that you’d get here and then everything would be happily ever after. But, it’s hard work, almost harder once you’re successful because you’ve got to maintain it.

I think being able to age gracefully is a very important talent. It is too late for me.

I have feelings too. I am still human. All I want is to be loved, for myself and for my talent.

Be the chief but never the lord.

This ain’t fun. But you watch me, I’ll get it done.

Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy.

It’s about the stories. If I write 14 stories that I love, then the next step is to get the environment of music around it to best envelop the story, and all kinds of sonic goodness – sonic goodies.

I don’t want to make niche-oriented music.

Music when healthy, is the teacher of perfect order, and when depraved, the teacher of perfect disorder.

I used to feel unsafe right in the moment of an accomplishment – I felt the ground fall from under my feet because this could be the end. And even now, while everyone is celebrating, I’m on to the next thing. I don’t want to get lost in this big cushion of success.

I know I’m talented, but I wasn’t put here to sing. I was put here to be a wife and a mom and look after my family. I love what I do, but it’s not where it begins and ends.